FC: Ashcroft balks at Congress' request for antiterror oversight

[Declan McCullagh <declan () well com>]

[Let's get this right: 1. Ashcroft asks for new "antiterror" powers last 
fall. 2. Congress near-unanimously gives him what he wants in the USA 
Patriot Act. 3. Ashcroft refuses to say how they're being used. 4. Whoops! 
It turns out that the congresscritters forgot to put something in the law 
that *requires* Ashcroft to answer any questions about how his brand-new 
"antiterror" powers are being used. (Detention camps, perhaps?) Nice job, 
everyone! --Declan]

---

http://www.nytimes.com/2002/08/15/politics/15PATR.html

August 15, 2002

Justice Dept. Balks at Effort to Study Antiterror Powers
By ADAM CLYMER

WASHINGTON, Aug. 14 — The Justice Department has rebuffed House Judiciary 
Committee efforts to check up on its use of new antiterrorism powers in the 
latest confrontation between the Bush administration and Congress over 
information sought by the legislative branch.

Instead of answering committee questions, the Justice Department said in a 
letter that it would send replies to the House Intelligence Committee, 
which has not sought the information and does not plan to oversee the 
workings of the U.S.A. Patriot Act.

Representative F. James Sensenbrenner Jr., the Wisconsin Republican who is 
chairman of the panel, and Representative John Conyers Jr. of Michigan, its 
ranking Democrat, sent Attorney General John Ashcroft a list of 50 
questions about the use of the new powers in the act, which the committee 
worked on before Congress approved it in October.

They asked about "roving" surveillance; lists of calls to and from 
telephone numbers; demands for bookstore, library and newspaper records; 
and subpoenas under the amended Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Act 
served on Americans or permanent residents. Some simpler questions, about 
Immigration and Naturalization Service employees the Canadian border, were 
answered.

Mr. Conyers complained that the letter was "yet another shot in this 
administration's ongoing war against open and accountable government." He 
said Mr. Ashcroft was telling Congress that "his activities are not to be 
oversighted."

[...]




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